


A Horizontal Fall

by Rosalita



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: First Times, M/M, None - Freeform, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 01:05:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/792257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosalita/pseuds/Rosalita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A near miss opens some eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Horizontal Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This marks both my first Sentinel story as well as the first vomiting scene I've ever written. Mom would be so proud. 

## A Horizontal Fall

by Rosalita

Author's webpage: <http://adult.dencity.com/rosalita1>

Author's disclaimer: All things Sentinel belong to Pet Fly Productions. No copyright infringement is intended. 

Thanks to Basingstoke for the suggestions and Cookie for the (as always) fabulous beta. 

For Rac, who started it all. Damn her. <g>

* * *

A Horizontal Fall  
by Rosalita  
rosalita1@mindspring.com  
Aug. 2000 

This is what hell must smell like. The acrid, scorched scent of fear rolls off Sandburg in waves. I can see him shaking, can hear his heart pounding, and his lungs heaving as if they all might come right out his chest. 

Christ, Chief, how do you get yourself into these situations? I can't figure how he ended up backed against a wall with a maniac's arm around his throat and a gun to his head. I don't suppose that how it happened matters much. What matters is getting him out of this unharmed. 

Scared or not, Sandburg's determined to talk his way out of the situation. I'm not so sure that talking is going to work on this guy. His eyes hold the look of someone who has nothing to lose and no regard for man whose life he could end in a second. Or for his own. I've seen this look enough to know that this guy is not going to be very responsive to reasoning. Maybe you should shut up now, Chief. 

Sandburg does shut up, but not because I'm trying to beam the suggestion into his brain. The gunman's arm is pressing into his throat, and now he's too busy struggling for air to talk. 

Shit! Come on, asshole, move just an inch to the right so I can blow your fucking head off. 

This has to stop. I'm moving, determined to be the one who makes it stop, but Simon is grabbing me, holding me back, hissing in my ear. 

I swat at him, trying to shut him up because a new sound has been introduced, and I need to hear it. Tuning out everything else, I listen. It's a creaking sound, like a mechanism that needs oiling would make. 

Goddammit. 

It's the trigger. 

All I can hear is that sound and the increasing pounding of Sandburg's heart. I take my eyes off the finger squeezing the trigger and look at him. His eyes are impossibly big and his face impossibly pale. 

He knows. 

I pull away from Simon, not sure exactly what I'm going to accomplish, but needing to do something, anything, other than crouch behind a squad car and watch Blair die. Maybe if I get there in time, maybe if the gunman does something stupid, I'll still have a chance. 

Sandburg doesn't take his eyes off me. In them, I see anger, resignation, regret, but no fear. I think he's way past that now. 

At that moment I realize that I'm not going to make it in time. I'm too fucking late. 

Oh God, no, please. 

The click is so loud that I flinch, not recognizing it at first for what it is. I'm wailing my loss when I realize what I've heard. 

The gun jammed. It fucking well jammed. 

Surprise makes the gunman ease his hold on Sandburg's throat. I scream, "Drop!" and Sandburg goes down, diving to his left and rolling out of the way as I squeeze the trigger of my own gun, taking my shot. 

I don't even watch the bullet hit its target. I don't need to. I hear it striking flesh, tearing through muscle and bone, ending a heartbeat, and exiting to hit the wall behind the body. My eyes are on Sandburg, and I'm already heading toward him as the other sounds of the scene kick back in, one by one. Yelling people, screaming sirens, running feet, and distinct sighs of relief. 

Sandburg is lifting himself from where he is sprawled on the pavement, moving to sit against the wall. I think it's the only thing holding him up. He's shaking badly, and I kneel next to him and drape my coat around his shoulders. He glances around me at the dead man, and I'm not quick enough to shield him from it. 

He tears himself from me and leans over, losing what looks like everything he's eaten for the last week. The painful-sounding retching goes on and on while I hold his hair out of the way with one hand and stroke his back with the other. Someone holds out a handkerchief and a bottle of water. Joel, I think. 

The retching is over, and Sandburg is on his hands and knees, looking none too steady. I don't think he has the energy to move, and I'd hate to see him fall into that mess, so I pull him back until he's practically sitting in my lap. A couple of uniforms give me an odd look, but fuck them. 

I hand him the water and the handkerchief, and he cleans himself up, assuring me the whole time that he's just fine and dandy. Right. His voice is shaky, and he spills more of the water than he manages to get into his mouth. As he turns his head to spit it out, Simon walks up and just narrowly misses getting his shoes splattered. 

With that what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this look that he seems to get only when Sandburg is around, Simon asks me, "The kid okay?" 

"Sure, he'll be fine." 

Then why is he still sitting in your lap? Simon doesn't actually voice the question, but it's being written across his face by an eyebrow climbing to his hairline. It's a fair question, I guess. The answer is I'm not ready to let go of him yet. 

I came too close to losing him. It isn't the first time, and I doubt it will be the last. Maybe I should just never let him leave the loft again, as if he'd go for that. It's just that this time was closer than most, and it really slammed home just how much I need him. Of course, I knew that already. I've known it since he saved my ass from being pancaked by a garbage truck, which is absolutely not the way I want to go. 

The need has changed, though. I no longer need as much help to control my senses because they've been mostly under control for a while now. Now, I need him just because he's Sandburg. Because he's Chief. Because he's Blair. 

I realize that makes it sound like he's starring in "The Three Faces of Sandburg," but that's not it. It's just the way I see him. Sandburg, my partner. Chief, my buddy. Blair, my . . . what? Not lover. Not yet. 

Soon, though, I think. I teased him about courtship rituals over our first breakfast in the loft, but that's what the last three years have been. One long, elaborate courtship. 

The attraction was there from the word go. When I slammed him against the wall of his office and felt his hard cock press against my thigh, I had answered his arousal by pressing my own into that soft, flat belly. He looked so young, I almost felt like a cradle-robbing letch, so I never mentioned it. I don't know why he never mentioned it, I just know we spent the next three years dancing around the whole subject. 

In light of how narrowly I missed losing him forever, all that dancing seems like so much wasted time. 

Sandburg's voice, a bit steadier and just this side of irritated, snaps me back. "The _kid_ can speak for himself." 

Atta boy, Chief. 

Simon's going on about statements and the usual shooting investigation. Yeah, yeah, I know the drill; I'll be riding a desk for awhile. I killed someone in the line of duty. Again. Even if the bastard did deserve it, it's still never easy. 

But I don't want to think about any of that right now. I just want to get Blair home. 

When we arrive at the loft, he bounds out of the truck ahead of me. By the time I catch up, he's trying to unlock the door and not being very successful. His shaking has subsided a lot, but it's still enough so that he's having trouble getting the key in the lock. I push him aside gently and open the door myself. Letting him through first, I follow. 

A blur, and he's on me, hands fisted in my t-shirt, shoving me back against the door with surprising force. Like a lot of people, I tend to underestimate how strong he is. I couldn't get him off me now if I wanted to. Not that I want to. 

I start to ask him what the hell he's doing when he takes advantage of my open mouth and shoves his tongue inside. He's standing on his toes, the entire length of his body pressed against me, his mouth glued to mine, our tongues playing tag. I don't think I've ever been kissed so thoroughly before. 

His tongue is everywhere. Running along my teeth, sweeping the roof of my mouth, poking into the my cheeks. 

Jesus, I think he just licked my tonsils. 

I know what this is all about. I can taste it on him, smell it, feel it in every beat of his heart. I know this. I understand it. I've been there. If not for a crappy gun, he'd be dead. Now I understand that look of regret that flashed in his eyes. He thought he was going to die without ever having done this, and now he was out to rectify the oversight as fast as he could. 

And it's going to be fast. It's going to be hard. It's going to be good. 

Really fucking good. 

I'm already so hard I ache. I dial my senses back a little. Don't want to end this too soon by coming in my pants. Sandburg won't get what he needs if I do that. 

Breaking the kiss, he breathes in hard, open-mouthed puffs. Arousal causes his shaking now, and his hair dances from it, seemingly alive. 

Alive, thank you, God. So damned alive. 

I shiver and sink my fingers into the living silk, ready to pull him in for another kiss when I see it. A small, round bruise on his right temple in the shape of a gun barrel. 

Motherfucker. I wish that bastard was still alive so I could kill him again. Slowly, this time. 

As gently as I can, I kiss the bruise and that kickstarts Sandburg. Fists still knotted in my shirt, he pulls and the fabric parts with a satisfying rip. Almost frantically, his hands and mouth wander my body. Caressing here, licking there. Stroking, sucking, pinching, biting. My throat, my nipples, my abdomen, my navel. No noise except the sound of his mouth and hands on my body, and the breathy, soft moans that punctuate each darting kiss, each rough stroke. 

The room tilts and find myself on my back on the floor. Sandburg crouches over me, feral gleam in dark eyes, trying to undo my pants. As excited as I am--and that's more excited than I've ever been in my life--I'm not about to let him rip up my brand new pants. 

"Let me," I tell him, undoing the belt and buttons, pulling down the zipper. Hot eyes follow my hands, his tongue darts out to lick full lips. 

Oh yeah, this is going to do me in. 

I shove my pants down my hips and he grabs them, working them and my shoes and socks off. I realize that I'm spread out on the floor, completely naked with my partner still fully dressed and crouched between my legs. 

It's a sight straight out of one of my favorite fantasies and it makes my cock throb. I'm about to come and he hasn't even touched me yet. When he does, I'll probably die. 

Dial it down, boy, dial it down. He isn't finished with you yet. 

Moving forward, Sandburg gives me a grin that makes me shudder with delight and makes me wonder if he's gone completely around the bend. On the other hand, would it be so bad to have an insane roommate if he does this sort of thing on a regular basis? 

Quick as a snake striking, his hand closes around my cock and strokes upward just as his mouth closes over the tip. My fingertips dig into the floor, seeking purchase on ungiving wood. 

It's over. My entire body arches, a scream rips from my throat, and I'm coming. God, am I coming. 

When he's sure I'm sufficiently recovered to understand what's happening, he stands over me and strips off his clothes. I've seen him naked before, but not like this. Rampantly hard, flushed from head to toe, and totally fucking beautiful. 

"Don't move." With the first words he'd spoken since we left the scene, he heads for the kitchen. I watch, mesmerized by the sway of rounded ass. A cabinet opens, then closes, and he returns, carrying a bottle of olive oil. 

Jim, my boy, you're about to get the fucking of your life. My cock sits up and takes notice at the thought. Not bad for a guy who's pushing 40. 

He straddles me and opens the bottle, pouring the oil over his fingers. His mouth turns up in that insane grin he's just acquired today, and he reaches back between his legs, and . . . 

No, he isn't. 

Oh yeah, he is! 

"Blair." His name piggybacks on a moan. Fingers disappear inside his body, and he rides back on them, eyes fluttering closed. 

Holy shit. My cock is instantly, painfully hard again, and I have to close my own eyes to keep from coming at the sight of Blair opening himself for me. 

Moments later, a slick hand slides up and down my cock, then steadies it. My eyes fly open. Without further ado, Blair slams himself down onto me, taking it all in one motion. 

We both scream. 

It's fast. It's hard. It's good. It's really fucking good. 

He rises and falls sharply, impaling himself on my cock over and over. He's really working himself and me. Each twist and squeeze of his lower body makes us both grunt. 

This isn't lovemaking. Lovemaking will come later. This is fucking. Hard, down-and-dirty, howling, life-affirming fucking. 

It's what he needs. It's what we both need. 

A thin layer of sweat covers his body, and I can smell him. His heartbeats are rapid in an entirely different way than they'd been earlier. He's so hot--inside and out--I've got to touch him. I reach for his cock, purple in its need, and he bats my hand away. Hair flies as he shakes his head. 

"Not yet," he gasps. So I content myself to run my hands through the soft fur of his chest and legs. I steady his hips and pull him down on me even harder, thrusting up as I do. 

"Oh yeah," he growls. "Now, Jim . . . oh, fuck. Now!" 

I barely have time to stroke his cock once before he throws his head back, stiffens, and wails out his orgasm. A steady stream of come spills over my hand, and the feel and the sight and the smell trips my trigger. This coming is even more intense than the first. I can't believe I survived it. 

Hell, I can't believe I came twice. 

Blair collapses onto my chest, and I slip from his body. I hold him like that for a long time, my fingers sliding through his hair, his face buried in the crook of my neck. 

When he finally lifts his head to look at me, there are so many questions in his eyes. Questions we'll answer later. 

"Okay, now?" I ask. 

He shakes his head. Of course, he isn't okay yet. But he will be. 

"Better?" I try again, caressing his face. 

He nods, and his normal smile returns. He settles back down on my chest, seemingly content to stay there all night. 

"Come on, Chief, bed." I try to roll him off me, but he clings to me. 

"No," he mutters sleepily. "Want to stay here." 

Okay, so we'll spend the night on the floor. I'll be stiff as hell in the morning, but Blair will be happy. 

And that's the important thing, right? "Okay," I whisper, though I know he's asleep. "Anything you want." 

And I mean that. 

End. 


End file.
